The present invention relates to systems, methods and equipment for feeding tabbed dividers (or other small or irregularly shaped articles) into printers, particularly laser printers, for printing on the tabs of the dividers.
Different brands of software are currently available and others are being developed for causing laser, ink jet and other printers to automatically print the desired indicia directly on tabs of dividers. The dividers can be approximately 81/4 inches by eleven inches when folded before printing and unfold to the standard nine inches by eleven inches after printing. They are typically constructed of medium weight paper reinforced along one longitudinal edge by an adhered layer of plastic film. This edge may include three through-holes for filing the divider in a ringed binder. Extending out from the opposite edge is a tab, having a length of about 11/4 inch to 17/8 inch and a width of one-half inch and which may be reinforced with an adhered layer of plastic film. The tabs on different dividers in a set are typically provided between three to eight different positions.
In the past when such dividers were fed using multipurpose or cassette trays into inkjet, electrophotographic or laser printers, the dividers tended to skew as they entered the printer. This skewing occurs because (1) the tabs of the dividers stick out one-half inch from the body of the paper and thus do not provide full continuous contact of each divider to the paper guide of the (multipurpose) printer tray and (2) the paper guide of the multipurpose tray is much shorter than the paper divider itself. This means that the dividers with the last few tab positions do not contact the paper guide, specifically, the fourth and fifth tabs of a five tab set and the fifth through eighth tabs of an eight tab set.